A recent series of accusations leveled at high-ranking Kenyan and Nigerian government leaders has offered a rare glimpse into the secretive world of supranational offshore finance. The latest incident centering upon allegations of fraud and money laundering leveled upon Nambale Chris Okemo and former Kenya Power managing director Samuel Gichuru, involve a series of complex financial transactions enacted through the Guernsey and Jersey and Isle of Man offshore havens.
A number of questions have sprung up concerning the apparent lack of institutional controls involved in transactions where official protection is offered by banks, shelters, trusts and other institutions who ask few if any questions in regard to the source of funds deposited into this super secretive system. An interesting explanation of a portion of the system was detailed in an article written by Charles Aburge.

Quote:

A background of Jersey is in order to put the story in context. Like Guernsey and the Isle of Man, Jersey is a British crown dependency. Together with seven British Overseas territories (let's call them surviving colonies) such as Cayman Islands, Gibraltar, British Virgin Islands and Bermuda, Montserrat, and Turks & Caicos. These islands are some of the world's most notorious financial secrecy jurisdictions and tax havens.
A 2009 study by Christian Aid (the Financial Secrecy Index, 2009) ranked the US state of Delaware as the biggest provider of International Financial Secrecy, the City of London ranked a distant 5th. Jersey and Guernsey took eleventh and 13th positions respectively, out of 60 countries.

They thrive on offering secrecy services or opaqueness, in particular concealment of the identities of beneficiaries of companies registered there and the actual owners of bank accounts. That they are tax havens means that their main attraction to companies registering there is low or zero taxes.
The combination of secrecy and low/zero tax services provides a fatal pull for companies to launder profits away from where they make them-while evading taxes back home-and for those who want to hide dubious sources of wealth and profits from public scrutiny.

...the company was not even known to the Kenyan parliament for three years after it acquired shares in Safaricom. Mobitelea paid $5 million in cash to take a five per cent stake in Safaricom…” “The legal web concealing the real persons behind Mobitelea is in itself intriguing. Mobitelea was registered in the other British Crown Dependency, Guernsey, as a "shell" company.
Like Jersey, Guernsey is a secrecy jurisdiction as well as a tax haven. Mobitelea was registered in Guernsey as owned by two other Guernsey registered Nominee companies Mercantor Nominee Ltd and Mercantor Trustees Ltd.
The directors of these companies are also companies: Anson Ltd and Cabot Ltd who are registered in Anguilla and Antigua, which are also tax havens and secrecy jurisdictions…”

Other examples of offshore financial might was detailed in a recent Miami Herald article that revealed Stephan Gietl of Austria and his Argentinian partner Fernando Levy-Hara have purchased 307 south Florida condo units for approximately $40 million since 2009. The duo have reportedly sold a number of the units to unidentified international investors. A practice that allows those investors to maintain their secrecy and therefore avoid questions in regard to the source of their funds. Other deals detailed in the article were $27 million in purchases by Hong Kong based real-estate and airline Swire Properties and Swire Pacific which included the headquarters of Eastern Bank. First Bank Puerto Rico sold Agave Holdings 'a firm tied to the owner of Jose Cuervo tequilla,' $30.55 for an unspecified project in Coral Gables.